Go Fug Yourself Book Club discussion

In another thread Alisa challenged me to choose my favorite 35 books I had read in this decade, and I took her up on that. I riffed a bit – I only included books published since 2000 and I went with 50, because 35 was too hard. I already had to make some painful cuts. (Some choices are multiple books in the same series and counted as a single entry. My list my rules!)

I separated Romance from Fiction because my standards differ – its like comparing The Seventh Seal and The Pitch Perfect. Both satisfying, but for completely different reasons. Same with dividing memoirs from nonfiction. Yes memoirs are factual … but not really. I don’t want objectivity in my memoirs and I rarely enjoy nonfiction when that is missing.So here is my list (with reviews where I wrote them) -- I would love to see yours!

Fiction

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Nickel Boys https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Matterhorn https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A Ladder to the Sky https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Goldfinch https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Great Believers https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Life After Life/ A God in Ruins (series rule)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Gilead/Home/Lila (series rule)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Lake Success
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

There There
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A Gentleman in Moscow
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Middlesex (I re-read it this decade so I will count it)

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao/This is How You Lose Her (series rule)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Olive Kitteridge/Olive Again (series rule!)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Wonder
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Purity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Redepolyment
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

City of Thieves
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Romance

The Bride Test
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Raven Prince
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

His Every Kiss
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Devil’s Daughter/Marrying Winterbourne/Devil in Spring (Same series, so….)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Royally Screwed/Royally Matched/Royally Endowed (Once again, same series!)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Kept
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

If His Kiss is Wicked
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Do You Want to Start a Scandal?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Nonfiction

Dopesick
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Columbine
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

In the Garden of Beasts

Evicted
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Ghettoside
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Detroit: An American Autopsy
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Going Clear
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Assassination Vacation

Blood at the Root
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Under the Banner of Heaven

Memoir

Heavy
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Hunger
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Kitchen Confidential
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Life
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

Rez Life
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Tender Bar

When You are Engulfed in Flames/Me Talk Pretty One Day/Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim/Calypso (one life documented, going with the series rule)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Just Kids/M Train (its all Patti so I am going with the series rule)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Madness: A Bipolar Life
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

H is for Hawk
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Year of Magical Thinking

OK! In no particular order. I did same rules as Bonnie (series counts as 1), but I cut mine down to 35. I didn't review much when I first started using GR, so instead, I'll comment if something particularly resonated with me.

Series/Collections:
- Harry Potter series
- Hunger Games trilogy
- David Sedaris catalog (Me Talk Pretty One Day, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Naked, primarily)
- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series (Stieg Larsson ones only, not the continuations)

Fiction:
- The Shadow of the Wind (top 5 all time)
- The Fault in Our Stars (same, though I know a lot of people hate it)
- The Forgotten Garden
- By Blood (I think of this book every time I see the sound machine in my therapist's office)
- Life After Life
- The Book Thief
- Warm Bodies (I can still hear the narrator in my head all these years later!)
- Attachments (this was the first book I read when I moved across the country and was checking out new book clubs. I just like it.)
- We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
- Tell The Wolves I'm Home
- To Kill a Mockingbird (read in high school, but re-read for the first time a few years ago)
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Station Eleven (I dragged my feet on reading this for book club for SO LONG ... and then I loved it, and think about it all the time)
- The Tsar of Love and Techno
- Homegoing
- My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- The Poet X
- Long Way Down

Nonfiction:
- Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- Bad Feminist
- Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
- Becoming Nicole
- Boundaries
- Evicted
- Born a Crime
- Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Romance:
- Say Yes to the Marquess (I was exploring my new library in Virginia at the time, and I had never read a romance novel before. I loved this one so much, and it turned me into a regular romance reader, and I'm really thankful for that. Happy stories of love have gotten me through so much!)
- The Kiss Quotient
- Knit One, Girl Two
- Well Met (unexpectedly, I think about this one a lot. I didn't expect much of it, but the realistic time-passes-but-we-still-grieve-people-we've-lost story has bumped it into favorites)

Allie wrote: "OK! In no particular order. I did same rules as Bonnie (series counts as 1), but I cut mine down to 35. I didn't review much when I first started using GR, so instead, I'll comment if something par..."

Oooh, so glad you played! I almost included Born A Crime and Station Eleven. I love those books and both were part of my painful cuts.

And I loved what you said about reading romance. I have been reading it since I was 13 and I stole "Wicked Loving Lies" and "The Wolf and the Dove" out of my mother's bottom nightstand drawer (my dad's drawer held Penthouse and Playboy, and I also stole those!) Anyway, I loved "happy stories of love have gotten me through so much." Yes! That! They are like a air release valve for me. Life too much of a challege? Just breathe and read some Tessa Dare, or Courtney Milan, or Elizabeth Hoyt, or Lisa Kleypas, or ......

I have two that stand out above all the rest: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.

I've read hundreds of REALLY good books, but it all comes down to these two for me.

CDBS wrote: "I have two that stand out above all the rest: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.

I've read hundreds of REALLY good books, but it all comes down to these two for me."

You like the sprawling multi-generational family sagas, eh? Both were really good books! Though they did not make my list, both were 5-star reads for me, and I don't give a ton of 5-star ratings

Bonnie G. wrote: "CDBS wrote: "I have two that stand out above all the rest: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.

I've read hundreds of REALLY good books, but it all comes down to these two for me."..."

It's funny, I have also talked with others about how they are so similar in terms of being that multi-generational family story. They were so different in the stories they told, though, and what they taught me about history.

Favorite books I've read 2010-present:

Wolf Hall
Bring Up the Bodies
The Wonder
Euphoria
Longbourn
Song of Achilles
Normal People
American Wife

Non-fiction:
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Name of War
Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger

Honorable Mentions
Life After Life
The Rules of Civility
The Run of His Life: The People vs. OJ Simpson
The Son
The Last Days of the Incas
The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation
Batavia's Graveyard

Leah wrote: "Favorite books I've read 2010-present:

Wolf Hall
Bring Up the Bodies
The Wonder
Euphoria
Longbourn
Song of Achilles
Normal People
American Wife

Non-fiction:
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Name of..."

I also loved Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. They were on my longlist. I believe it was intended to be a trilogy -- I keep waiting for book 3!

Leah wrote: "Favorite books I've read 2010-present:

Wolf Hall
Bring Up the Bodies
The Wonder
Euphoria
Longbourn
Song of Achilles
Normal People
American Wife

Non-fiction:
Killers of the Flower Moon
The Name of..."

I've never heard of the 9/11 report graphic novel. Sounds interesting!

Just saw this -- MORE LISTS https://lithub.com/the-20-best-novels...

Bonnie G. wrote: "Just saw this -- MORE LISTS https://lithub.com/the-20-best-novels..."

Never a good sign when the list of best books of the decade starts with one you hated lol. I've read some of the others, though, and while I wouldn't necessarily have included them in MY best, it's not a bad list overall.

Allie wrote: "Bonnie G. wrote: "Just saw this -- MORE LISTS https://lithub.com/the-20-best-novels..."

Never a good sign when the ..."

Actually the first is a book I loved, but Flamethrowers I detested.

Bonnie G. wrote: "Leah wrote: "Favorite books I've read 2010-present:

Wolf Hall
Bring Up the Bodies
The Wonder
Euphoria
Longbourn
Song of Achilles
Normal People
American Wife

Non-fiction:
Killers of the Flower Moo..."

Ask and yea shall receive -- the third of Hilary Mantel's trilogy is due in spring apparently. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...

Alicia wrote: "Leah wrote: "Favorite books I've read 2010-present:

Wolf Hall
Bring Up the Bodies
The Wonder
Euphoria
Longbourn
Song of Achilles
Normal People
American Wife

Non-fiction:
Killers of the Flower Moo..."

It's a graphic adaptation that was created by comics artists so that more people would read and understand the findings of the 9/11 commission. it's both a really great idea/project and also of course extremely informative.

Bonnie G. wrote: "Bonnie G. wrote: "Leah wrote: "Favorite books I've read 2010-present:

Wolf Hall
Bring Up the Bodies
The Wonder
Euphoria
Longbourn
Song of Achilles
Normal People
American Wife

Non-fiction:
Killers..."

I honestly may take off work. This is like my Harry Potter midnight release.

Leah wrote: "Bonnie G. wrote: "Bonnie G. wrote: "Leah wrote: "Favorite books I've read 2010-present:

Wolf Hall
Bring Up the Bodies
The Wonder
Euphoria
Longbourn
Song of Achilles
Normal People
American Wife

No..."

If we were in the same town I would wait in line with you!